Sep
9
“So we have a situation where the devious idea of luxury goods has been undercut by its own total ubiquity. When you get a bunch of people displaying those goods in a pressure cooker like Tokyo, what they start to notice is that they’re all wearing the same shit. They may be differentiated by their ability to spend the price of a small car on a pair of pants, but they’re all wearing the same pair of pants. So the original idea of exclusivity has gone out the window. The secret brands idea says, “You’ve got a lot of money, but you can’t have this shit because you don’t have the right information.” It suddenly becomes exclusive again. And it doesn’t necessarily have to be about very expensive luxury goods. It works because it gives people a powerful sense of individual involvement.”
WILLIAM GIBSON - Viceland Today (via Instapaper)
